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September 6, 2004
on Minnesota Public Radio
I was a guest this morning on a Minnesota Public radio call-in show, Midmorning with Kerri Miller. The topic was civic education and the civic and political behavior of young people. The other guests were Harry Boyte from "the U" (that's the University of Minnesota), who has been a huge influence on me for more than ten years, and Michael Kuhne from Minneapolis Community and Technical College, whom I had the pleasure to meet this spring in the Twin Cities. Since Michael and I are Boyte fans, we didn't disagree about anything.
The call-in questions were good and various. There was one surprising theme: three callers argued that American politics has been so corrupted by special-interest cash that no one should participate. I don't think that that's a very widespread view, but it's held by some Minnesota public radio listeners, who are ready to cite examples and statistics at the drop of a hat. I once wrote a book largely arguing for campaign-finance reform, so I believe in it. However, I don't think it's the full story--for two reasons. First, despite some corruption in American politics, ordinary citizens are doing very positive and significant political work all across the country. So we don't need to tell students that they have been rendered powerless by big money. Second, even if we could clean up the formal political system, Americans wouldn't automatically begin to participate. Many of us need better skills, knowledge, and attitudes before we can influence government or address social problems. So campaign finance reform is a good idea, but it's no panacea.
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